A Christmas Child Part 9

"Ses," said Ted. "Nothing comes all in one sudden. The f'owers is weeny, weeny buds at first, and then they gets big. Nurse, I'm going to take my cart to get a _lot_ of daisies down by the brook for baby. She likes to roll zem in her hands," and off he set with his little blue cart and white horse, his best beloved possession, and which had done good service in its time, to fill it with flowers for Cissy.

A few minutes later, as he was manfully dragging the cart up the path again, gee-upping and gee-whoing at the horse, which was supposed to find the daisy heads a heavy load uphill, his mother came out to the garden.

"Ted, dear," she said, "your father is going to drive me to A----. It is a long time since you were there, and I should like to have my little boy to go about with me while your papa is busy. I have a good deal of shopping to do. Would you like to go with me?"

Ted gave a shout of pleasure. Then suddenly his glance fell on the little sister still in her perambulator under the big tree, and his eyes filled with tears.

"I would like dedfully to go," he said, "but poor Cissy. I _is_ so afraid Cissy will cry if I go."

He lifted his wistful little face to his mother's with an expression that went to her heart.

"Dear Ted," she said; "you are a good, kind, little boy. But don't make yourself unhappy about Cissy. She is too little to cry for your going away, though she will laugh to see you come back."

Ted's face cleared, but suddenly a rosy colour spread over it.

"Muzzer," he said, in a low voice, tugging gently at her dress to make her stoop down, "muzzer, I _sink_ I were going to cry not all for poor baby being sorry, but part 'cos I did so want to go."

Mother understood his simple confession.

"Yes, dear," she said, "I daresay you did, and it is right of you to tell me. My good little Ted," she could not resist adding again, and again little Ted's face grew red, but this time with pleasure at mother's praise.

Baby bore the announcement, which he considered it his duty to make to her with great formality, very philosophically. Less philosophically did she take nurse's wheeling her away from under her beloved tree with its fluttering branches, towards the house, where nurse had to go to prepare Ted for his expedition. In fact, I am sorry to say that so little did the young lady realise what was expected of her, that she burst into a loud roar, which was quite too much for Ted's feelings.

"Dear baby, sweet baby," he cried, "thoo mustn't be tooked away from thoo's tree. I'll ask muzzer to deck me, nurse," he went on eagerly, for his mother had returned to the house, "or I can nearly kite well deck myself. I'll call thoo if I can't find my things. I'll run and ask muzzer," and off he went, so eager to give no trouble, so ready and helpful that nurse thought it best to let him have his way, and to devote her attention to the discomposed Miss Baby.

Ted did not find his mother quite so quickly as he expected, though he peeped into the drawing-room and called her by name as he pa.s.sed her own room upstairs, on his way to the nursery. The fact was that mother was in the kitchen consulting with cook as to the groceries required to be ordered, and it never came into Ted's head to look for her there at this time of day. So he went straight on to the nursery, and managing with a good deal of tugging and pulling and coaxing to open _his_ drawer in the chest, he got out his best little coat and hat and prepared to don them.

But first he looked at his hands, which were none the whiter for their recent ravages among the daisies.

"Zem's very dirty," he said to himself; "zem must be washed."

There was water in the jug, but Ted's ambition was aroused, and great things were to be expected of a little boy who was big enough to "deck himself," as he would have described the process.

"Ses, zem's _very_ dirty," he repeated, contemplating the two sunburnt little paws in question. "Zem should have hot water. Hot water makes zem ze most clean."

He glanced round, the hot water was not far to seek, for, though it was June, the weather was not very warm, and nurse generally kept a small fire burning in the day-nursery. And beside the fire, temptingly beside the fire, stood the kettle, into which Ted peeping, satisfied himself that there was water enough for his purpose. He would hardly have had patience to fetch it had it not been there, so eager was he for the delights of putting it on to boil. And, wonderful to say, he managed it; he got the kettle, heavy for him to lift, as you can imagine, safely on to the fire, and then, with immense satisfaction, sat down in front of it to watch the result. There was very little water in the kettle, but, though Ted did not think about that, it was all the less trying for his patience. And I hardly think either, that the water could have been quite cold in the first place, or else the fairies came down the chimney and blew up the fire with their invisible bellows to help little Ted, for certainly the kettle began to boil amazingly soon--first it simmered gently and then it began to sing more loudly, and at last what Ted called "moke" began to come out of the spout, and he knew that the kettle was boiling.

Ted was so used to hear nurse talking about the kettle "boiling" for tea, that it never came into his head that it was not necessary to have "boiling" water to wash his poor little hands. I don't indeed know what might not have happened to the whole of his poor little body had not his mother at that moment come into the room. A queer sight met her eyes--there was Ted, more than half undressed, barefooted and red-faced, in the act of lifting off the steaming kettle, round the handle of which, with wonderful precaution, he had wrapped his pocket-handkerchief.

Ted's mother kept her presence of mind. She did not speak till the kettle was safely landed on the floor, and Ted, with a sigh of relief, looked up and saw her at the door.

"I is decking myself, muzzer," he said with a pleased smile, and a charming air of importance, "Poor baby cried, so I told nurse I would deck myself, and nurse didn't mind."

"_Didn't_ she?" said his mother, rather surprised.

"Oh, she thoughtened p'raps I'd find thoo, I amember," Ted continued, correcting himself.

"But did nurse know you were going to boil water?" said his mother.

"Oh no," said Ted, "it were only that my hands is _so_ dirty. Zem needs hot water to make zem clean."

"Hot water, but not _boiling_," said his mother; "my dear little boy, do you know you might have scalded yourself dreadfully?"

"I put my hankerwick not to burn my hands," said Ted, rather disconsolately.

"Yes, dear. I know you meant it for the best, but just think if you had dropped the kettle and burnt yourself. And nurse has always told you not to play with fire or hot water."

"Ses," said Ted, "but I weren't _playing_. I were going to wash my hands to be nice to go out wif thoo," and his blue eyes filled with tears. But they were soon wiped away, and when his mother had with the help of _some_ of the hot water made face and hands as clean as could be, and smoothed the tangled curls and fastened the best little coat, Ted looked very "nice" indeed, I can a.s.sure you, for his drive to A----.

It was a very happy drive. Perched safely between his father and mother, Ted was as proud as a king. It was all so pretty, the driving through the shady lanes, where the honeysuckle and wild-roses were just beginning to show some tints of colour, the peeps now and then of the sea below in its blue beauty, the glancing up sometimes at the mountain top, Ted's old friend, along whose sides they were actually travelling--it was all delightful. And when they drew near the little town, and the houses began to stand closer, till at last they came in rows and streets, and the old mare's hoofs clattered over the stones of the market-place so that the people in the sleepy little place came out to see who was coming, Ted's excitement knew no bounds. He had almost forgotten A----, it was so long since he had been there--the sights of the shops and what appeared to him their wonderful contents, the sight even of so many people and children walking about, was almost too much for the little country child; it seemed to take his breath away.

He recovered his composure, however, when he found himself trotting about the streets with his mother. She had several shops to go to, each, to Ted, more interesting than the other. There was the ironmonger's to visit, for cook had begged for a new preserving pan and the nursery tea-pot handle was broken; there were various milk jugs and plates to replace at the china shop; brown holland to get at the draper's for Ted's summer blouses. At two or three of the shops his mother, being a regular customer and having an account with them, did not pay, and among these was the grocer's, where she had rather a long list of things needed for the store-closet, and while she was explaining about them all to the white-ap.r.o.ned young man behind the counter, Ted marched about the shop on a voyage of discovery on his own account. There were so many interesting things--barrels of sugar, white, brown, and darker brown still, neat piles of raisins and currants, closely fastened bottles of French plums, and rows of paper-covered tin boxes which Ted knew contained biscuits.

"What a kind man," he said to himself, "to give muzzer all she wants,"

as one after another of his mother's requests was attended to. "Why, he lets muzzer take whatever her likes!" he added, as having brought his wanderings to a close for a minute, he stood beside her and saw her lifting a little square of honey soap out of a box which the grocer presented to her for examination, and, greatly impressed, Ted set off again on another ramble. Doubtless he too might take whatever he liked, and as the thought occurred to him he pulled up before another barrel filled with lumps, little and big, of half clear, whitey-looking stuff, something like very coa.r.s.e lump sugar, only not so white, and more transparent. Ted knew what it was. It was soda, _was.h.i.+ng_ soda I believe it is usually called. Ted was, as I have said, very wide-awake about all household matters, for he always used his eyes, and very often--indeed rather oftener than was sometimes pleasant for the people about him if they wanted to be quiet--his tongue too, for he was great at asking questions.

"Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it makes things come cleaner."

Just then his mother called him.

"Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going."

Ted started and ran after her, but just as he did so, he stretched out his hand and took a lump of soda out of the barrel. He did it quite openly, he didn't mind in the very least if the shopman saw him--like the daisies in the field, so he thought, the soda and the sugar and the French plums and everything were there for him or for any one to help themselves to as they liked. But Ted was not greedy--he was far better pleased to get something "useful" for mother than anything for himself.

He would have asked her what he had better take, if he had had time--he would have stopped to say "Thank you" to the grocer had he not been in such a hurry to run after his mother.

They walked quickly down the street. Ted's mother was a little absent-minded for the moment--she was thinking of what she had ordered, and hoping she had forgotten nothing. And holding her little boy by the one hand she did not notice the queer thing he was holding in the other. Suddenly she stopped before a boot and shoe shop.

"I must get baby a pair of shoes," she said. "She is such a little kicker, she has the toes of her cloth ones out in no time. We must get her a pair of leather ones I think, Ted."

"Ses, I sink so," said Ted.

So his mother went into the shop and asked the man to show her some little leather shoes. Ted looked on with great interest, but when the shoes were spread out on the counter and he saw that they were all _black_, he seemed rather disappointed.

"Muzzer," he said in a low voice, tugging at his mother's skirts, "I saw such bootly boo boots in the man's winder."

His mother smiled.

"Yes, dear," she replied, "they're very pretty, but they wouldn't last so long, and I suspect they cost much more."

Ted looked puzzled.

"What does thoo mean?" he said, but before his mother had time to explain, the active shopman had reached down the "bootly" boots and held them forward temptingly.

"They're certainly very pretty," said baby's mother, who, to tell the truth, was nearly as much inclined for the blue boots as Ted himself.

"What is the price of them?"

"Three and sixpence, ma'am," replied the man.

"And the black ones, the little black shoes, I mean?"